The rope won't come loose.

The sun is hot on his face (he doesn't know what happened to his hat, but he's got bigger things to worry about) and his shirt is soaked in sweat, and he knows how he'd smell if the walkers noticed him. Afraid, and alive.

He's been struggling for about half an hour, trying to wriggle himself free, millimeter by millimeter. He knows he can't let the rope dig into his wrists too much; knows he can't afford to smell afraid, alive, and like blood.

He can hear the walkers down the street. They haven't noticed him yet, but they're drifting closer, and the rope won't come loose.

Soon, they'll notice him, and he won't be able to do a thing to save himself.

Shane has never been so afraid in his entire life.

The mid-sized town was too good of an opportunity to pass up – not that anyone had suggested they do so. Somehow, in this strange world where everything had ground to a halt, their group was developing a routine. They woke together, they ate together, they travelled together, and when they found places that might have supplies, they scavenged them.

Rick would gather the most capable of them around to plan, even though the plans were usually the same. Glenn would scout ahead, see if there was anything of use to them, check out the number of dead in the area, and map out their exits. Then a small team of them, no more than four, would go in as quietly as possible, avoid what walkers they could and take out the ones they couldn't. They'd get in, post a guard, get their supplies, and get out.

But yesterday, Glenn had wrenched his ankle, and so Shane did the scouting while Rick and T-Dog waited for him two blocks back.

As it turned out, they could have used more planning. When Shane ran into four other guys, all of them living and none of them particularly friendly, he had no backup and no escape. The other guys weren't keen on sharing the spoils from the pharmacy they were looting, but they were keen on stealing Shane's gun.

In a generous moment, they'd offered him this damn rope in exchange, and left him tied back-on to a light pole around the corner from the pharmacy. If Shane couldn't hear the hissing and moaning, hadn't just seen shambling movement coming around the corner, he might be embarrassed, or even enraged. He might want to yell, or kick something, or punch someone.

Instead, he goes completely still. He doesn't close his eyes, because that would be like giving up, but he forces his body to relax before the walker turns toward him. He lets his knees buckle, and sags into the rope even though it pulls painfully at his wrists and his shoulders are stretched uncomfortably behind him.

Let it think I'm dead, he prays, even though prayer isn't a habit he maintains. Even though he knows that walkers don't think, they just eat, and it doesn't matter if he's dead, it's not like they have discriminating taste. Fine, that's fine, just don't let it notice. Let it think he's part of the light pole, let it think he's stone.

He doesn't hold his breath, can't afford to let it come in a rush later. He keeps his eyes open and breathes slowly, shallowly, and concentrates on being stone.

Then there are two of them. And they aren't keeping on a straight path, aren't just going to wander off. They're searching, hunting, if what they do can be called anything volitional.

And then there are three. They aren't going to just pass him by.

Shane's heart rate picks up a little, and he can't control that, not really, but he can hide it and he does. One of the walkers is getting close to him. It's fifteen feet away, and then twelve, but it's not coming for him any more than it's coming for the light pole. It can't want him, because he's not flesh and blood, just stone.

Stone that smells like fear and sweat, he thinks, but that's not productive, so he shuts it out.

But his concentration doesn't keep the walker from approaching, because even though it's far more dead than he is, it refuses to be still.

The walker used to be a woman before it was so much rotting meat. It's wearing a tank top, and its exposed skin is in tatters, but it's also wearing jeans and the denim has held up pretty well, all things considered. One of its shoes is missing, and there's debris stuck it its foot. Some of its fingers are missing, but most of the ones that are left still have traces of garish orange nail polish. Its long dark hair is half torn out, and half its face has suffered a similar fate.

It's about nine feet away now. Seven.

It growls through a ruined throat, and turns its head toward him.

Shane wishes, for a moment, that he had closed his eyes, but he won't move them either, even though the game is up.

Five feet. His eyes are open, but the walker is all he sees.

Four.

He wonders how long it will take him to turn; how long he'll be still then. And how long he'll stay tied to this pole. And then he wonders how he's not panicking. At two feet, he thinks he might start.

When an axe cracks into the walker's skull, Shane doesn't jump.

A moment later, T-Dog is behind him, asking what happened and trying to untie the rope. The damn thing still won't come loose, of course, and he has to cut it off. Shane moves then, coming out of his slump as if he's been asleep. He doesn't sag, sway, fall, or shake.

"I'm fine," he says to T-Dog. He starts to explain what happened, but it's fairly obvious that no walker tied him up, and that he didn't do it to himself, so he just repeats, "I'm fine."

Thirty feet away, Rick is bashing in the skull of another walker, the third lying newly dead on the ground between them. Then Shane is moving forward, T-Dog right behind him, and he's twenty-five feet away, twenty, fifteen.

Panting from exertion and shaking from adrenaline, Rick gives him a concerned, searching look. Shane simply nods to him, deciding to be stone for a little while longer.

Then the three of them trudge back to the group empty-handed, and Lori and Carl run to Rick and hug him anyway, so relieved that he's come back. And Shane decides that maybe he'll be stone for the rest of the day.

End.

Written for the prompt: Shane's left tied to a post by some group. He can't get free but he can hear the shuffling and moaning of walkers nearby. Someone saves him, but not before Shane thinks he's a goner.